Dutty Wine is a Killa

Dutty Wine Kills

Fathead pointed me to this article in the Jamaican Gleaner. Some poor child in St. Catherines died recently and the cause of death ~The Dutty Wine. Dang. That's quite a bad way to die.

I do feel for her mum, however, it is sort of an interesting cause of death.

The one quote made me crack up:

"It is a warning to young people that dem mus stop du de Dutty Wine," said one
woman who called the incident a curse on the land. "Is like a demon sen' from de
pit a hell dat is taking the lives of the youth even before dem have time to
repent."

Three things to tell your teenagers before they leave home:
Don't Drink n Drive
Don't Do Drugs
Don't Dutty Wine

I get the need for word verrification, i just don't understand why they make it so hard to see?

In Jdid’s post, he wondered what had become of old friends/acquaintances.

This weekend was all about catching up on the past. Growing up in Dubai, I went to a Catholic school run by Italian nuns, who measured our skirts during recess and would warn us of washing our mouths out with soap should we dare to say anything foul. It was also a school that separated girls on one side of the building and the boys on the other. One precious iron gate become our porous wall of communication, and many an illicit letter and valentines day card passed through it. That iron gate, sure got a lotta love.

The separation of girls and boys enabled us girls to retain our innocence for a little while longer. At fourteen, I was still running around like a tomboy, not wearing any form of makeup to school and loving life. Since I had grown up with the girls in my class, (some from Kindergarten) we were as close as anything. Immigrating to Canada, really made me grow up in a flash, and left a hole for the friendships I had with those girls, free of adult bitchiness. I’ve kept in touch with a few of them, but I do miss having them a hop skip and jump away.

This weekend, a friend from Dubai came to stay with her four month old boy. I hadn’t seen M in about four years and so much had changed. She married her neighbor in Dubai, moved to state of 1000 lakes Minnesota, and had little baby Nat. Truth be known I was a little pensive about meeting her again. After all in the four years she had achieved adult hood, whilst I still party, splash too much money on clothes and for the most part still live like a glorified, (yet wiser) eighteen year old. Glad to report this weekend was great. Little Nat took a shine to me, and soon I was the one rocking him to sleep and playing Goo Goo Ga Ga games with him. Catching up with M made me realize how much I missed having her in my life. Baby and all, she still has her great fun side to her and she is a fabulous mum.

So my picture of ‘happiness’ for the weekend is little Nat!

Oh yeah it didn’t snow this weekend….so the beautiful sky lied, and I forgive it!

For five precious minutes each day, my subway car to work goes above ground. Today for those five minutes I got lost in the most beautiful sky I have seen in a long time. Clouds hid between hues of pink. Gorgeous stuff, this photograph is the closest I came to finding something like it on the net.

It was so beautiful, I new it meant trouble was a brewing.

The forecast on the radio: SNOW~ UGH!

Whose Your “DAWG?”

Dearest Honorable (Insert official ass kissing title here) Peter McKay,

I must say I am rather disappointed with you.

You were doing so well.

Sure you had a bit of a hiccup getting dumped by BS, but hey you survived, you kept a stiff upper lip, you became foreign minister. You look great in grey suits.

And now this~

Peter (Insert official ass kissing title here) no matter how bad the break up is, you as an official government official, are never ever allowed to say mean childish things about an ex in public. That’s politics 101. Never say mean things in public. They always come back to bite you in the ass.

And now you refuse to apologize. Who is your PR person? Really…..Fire them immediately. Learn something for Bill Clinton (yes I realize she was with him too….but it is this very judgmental attitude that has landed you in hot water to begin with….let it go.) You can do anything, so long as you apologize and sound like you mean it. People would have understood. She treated you badly, hurt your impeccable ‘Honorable (Insert ass kissing title here)’ ego.

Apologize Petey! It is time. The public secretly like you. They are a little miffed with BS for her home wrecking ways. They want to fogive you, they don’t want to have dig deep and defend feminism again. They will forgive and forget. But you must apologize.

Oh yes, I am available to replace that useless PR person.

Sincerely,

Lady Cranky Putz
(Awaiting special ass kissing title)




(Pssttt..........Background for Non Canadians:
Here is a quick history: Belinda Stronach, is the daughter and heir to the fortunes of Magna Corp. Miss BS quit daddy’s golden post to try her hand at politics. Since then she’s had quite a wild time. To quote Miss BS, she “is not the kind of lady that sits home on Friday night knitting.” Not our BS. Our BS frolics around with MPs, Presidents, and the most under performing married hockey player.

The newest hiccup in poor BS’s life comes from an ill-fated comment made by an ex boyfriend. Before BS crossed the floor to the Liberals, she was dating Peter McKay….who is also rumored to also be someone who doesn’t like to sit at home knitting on Friday nights. (CP apologizes profusely to all Members of Knitting Societies; you are the very fabric of society, without you people everywhere would be lacking in horse cushions, gloves and little booties…. I for one adore you.)

So McKay was in the House of Commons (our version of Congress) and a Liberal MP is reported to have asked him where his dog was. To which our creative (& bitchy) McKay replied, “You already have her.” Since the speaker of the house did not hear the comment, there is no ‘official’ record of it. McKay has gone on to deny making the comment, and refuses to apologize. Several opposition MP’s (honorable men that they are) have sworn affidavits that they indeed heard the comment. The Liberal party has seized this golden opportunity to disparage their hated rivals and are running with it, claiming that the conservatives are sexist horrible people. What surprises me is how short sighted and stubborn McKay is being. The calls for him to apologize are now calls for his resignation. A quick, clever apology would have put this behind him last week. Instead this little fiasco is going to seriously damage his reputation. Silly Silly McKay.)

This morning I get a message from a head hunter.

Her message: “Hey CP, How are you, Long time no talk, I’ve got this really exciting opportunity available and I have to talk to you about it, Give me a call as soon as you have a chance.”

I am literally shaking with excitement. I begin to imagine, a new office, all things I would buy with the extra mullah, an exciting new title that includes Sr. somewhere…

Salivating I call her back,

CP: Hey HH, How are you? Got your message….

HH: Oh I have a cold….(and proceeds to whine about the cold for five minutes)

CP: (Polite grunts and suggestions of Buckleys)

HH: Oh so the reason I called is I have this exciting opportunity.

CP: (Fainting with excitement) Yes, Yes tell me more.

HH: It pays fabulously, a very senior role.

CP: (I am fabulous, I can do Senior)

HH: It’s a buyer role for an international company

CP: (Confused~ Last I checked I was still in HR)

HH: Describes the position in detail- So if you know anyone, do tell me about it.

CP: (Irritated silence…… This woman has to be kidding.)

Moral of the story, Head Hunters are like annoying telemarketers who tell you, you’ve won a fabulous trip to Mexico, and then inform you that you have to sign up for a timeshare!

The Weekend Recap!

Friday night, I nursed my broken heart.

Saturday I looked at a nice condo, which sadly didn’t have a balcony or parking, two must haves in life. In the afternoon a good friend H, picked me up and we drove for about an hour and half up north, in a quest to admire fall. I posted a picture bellow of a couple we saw. Canada is gorgeous in fall.

In the night, my most wonderful friend S dragged me out. We went to C-lounge. Met friends I have not seen in while, met a ridiculously tall bouncer, who said I was ‘a sexy dancer.’ I am a petite girl, and so I reached just above his torso. Outside the club, we met a bunch of fellows celebrating a birthday. S said I should talk to the mouthy one, since he wasn’t bad looking. So I did, and we ended up giving them a ride to Bloor. Only along the way they kept trying to offer us money to drive them home, which was in the direct opposite direction from where we lived. They kept saying things like, let’s go for Chinese food, oh don’t worry we’ll pay or just drive us home and we’ll give you gas money. Now S and I do pretty well for ourselves, and frankly we don’t need anyone to buy us Chinese food or give us gas money. Nor did we ask, but they kept repeating it over and over again. Ugh…..pompous silly men.

We finally got rid of them, and had the most satisfying after a club snack at four am….may I hear a round of applause for……Mc Nuggets with Sweet and Sour Sauce…umm umm good….

I then got home and watched an hour of the Hitchcock ‘Birds’ movie…..who knew little birds could be so terrifying…..

Sunday four of us went to watch the ‘Last king of Scotland.’ A movie about the life of Idi Amin, told through a fictional character Nicholas Corrigan. I identified a lot with Nick. The first scene shows him sitting at the dinner table with his folks, about to fall into a predictable life of being a family doctor with his father. So Nick goes into his room and swirls his globe and points….first pick Canada….so he spins again (hehe How come my parent’s didn’t spin again??) and he touches on Uganda.

The movie was more about the nativity of people, as much as the genocidal and maniacal ways of Amin. I am guilty of Nick’s sins. I often feel trapped by the life I’ve been born into. Granted I am luckier than most. Growing up I was given tons of freedom. I’ve traveled extensively, yet I always come back to this life, where eventually I am expected and most likely will marry someone, have kids, get a mortgage, live a normal life. I take the subway each day and I see the same people, who’ve been doing the same routine for the last twenty years and I feel suffocated. And my mind wanders, thinking should I go volunteer somewhere or maybe just pick up and live somewhere for a couple of years?

The movie is interesting because it shows you quite accurately that a person’s nativity can land them in some hot water rather quickly. Adventure is often accompanied by danger. I know this first hand. Traveling through Barcelona my passport and wallet were stolen. I was lost, desolate and in a country that couldn’t care less. So I turned to the people I was running from, to save me.

Whew! This is getting to be a long post. Last but not least, after the movie we went to Il fornelo for dinner. The theatre we went to was located in a mall called Bayview Village, a very upscale area. In the restaurant we were the anomaly…..the only patrons of color and well bellow the average age of 55. I am not sure if this contributed to our shoddy service. It took them almost twenty minutes to take our order and they made it a point of dropping things off at our table without asking if there was anything we needed. One of the hostesses was a total ditz, we asked her for olive oil and vinaigrette, and we watched as she picked up the condiment holder and then proceeded to walk right by our table, until we started hollering at her. S was particularly upset that she wasn’t offered tea or coffee with her desert. In fact we had to ask for a desert menu. (Personally I was waiting for them to hand us the bill without offering to serve us desert, just to see S blow up. I have never seen her blow up and it would have been quite the sight.) All in all when you are spending more than $120 on dinner, I think it is your capitalist given right to expect decent service. Also they lost a fabulous amount of revenue on add ons…….

Autumn in Toronto

A picture from my autumn drive Saturday, this was a cutesy couple walking along with their sticks, enjoying a bit of nature.

Thursday night Dracs calls me at work. Says what you doing lets have Mexican. Well it wasn’t that straight forward a conversation, with Draconian nothing is ever that straight forward. I spent the last three weeks fortifying myself against him and I said to myself why not, I can have a casual dinner with him.

So I meet him and he is delicious as ever. Why oh Why is he so freaking charming.

It’s about five in the evening and we decide it is too early to eat, so we end up at his place to ‘change.’

And……..well ……….and.

Only in the midst of it, his elbow somehow pummels my nose and boom, I am sitting on his futon blood pouring down my hands and I am horrified. And he is horrified.

And it’s sort of funny, until the celestial meaning hits me.

This man’s broken your heart over and over again and now he is breaking your nose.

Of course it is unintentional, but with him, I always get hurt and he never means to hurt me.

We laughed, we did our thing, but the celestial realization was too much. When we looked at the watch at it was nine and a couple more realizations hit me. I had missed my beloved Grey’s Anatomy, we weren’t going to eat dinner, since any minute now he is going to say he’s got to go pick up his cousin, and to boot, I now have a swollen nose.

So we have a fight. A circular messy fight. The same fight we’ve had for the last two years. He says he can’t deal with me when I carry on. And he lets me take the bus home. I mean I waited the obligatory five minutes at his door. And then took the bus. And I cried like a buffoon all the way home. So by the time I got to my door I had a swollen nose, and a swollen face. I was quite the sight.

He called to apologize, and I left a message with mean horrible things and then called back four hours later to apologize. And somewhere I just realized that this is it. As much as I love this man, I cannot let him ‘unintentionally’ hurt me again.

This isn’t a sympathy post, it’s an honesty post.

On Festivals

Happy Diwali, to all my Hindu friends and bloggers out there! I was querying the two Hindu people I know about the significance of Diwali and they couldn’t remember the exact story or the related god’s name, which I found sort of funny.

I guess us poor Catholics were force fed all the mythology/terminology every Saturday at Catechism, so that there was never any danger of us forgetting. I did a quick skim through Google (what did I ever do before Google? It’s like a high tech version of those tell me why books) and Diwali, known as the festival of lights, is a celebration of the return of Lord Ram from fourteen years of exile after he kills a demon.

For Sikhs, Diwali is a celebration of Sri Guru Hargobind Ji's release from Gwalior jail. Upon the notice of his release, the Guru informed the Mughal emperor that he would not leave the prison unless the other 52, unjustly imprisoned individuals were also set free. In response, the emperor told the Guru that he could take as many people out of the jail as could hold on to his robes. A robe with 52 threads attached to it was then made upon the Guru's request. Sri Guru Hargobind Ji wore the robe and helped free 52 unjustly imprisoned non-Muslim rulers. (This part is courtesy of Wikipediea.)

My fondest memories of Diwali are from when I lived in Dubai. Dubai is so small and multicultural that you go to celebrate everyone’s feasts and festivals, and in more meaningful ways, that say the city of Toronto’s push to have a festival every weekend of summer. Diwali in Dubai consisted of momentous fireworks lighting up the night sky, elaborate and colorful clothes always magically trimmed in gold and plump juicy gelabis…..nothing says feast like a golden hot gelabi. Goodness my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Next a Very Happy Eid to all my Muslim friends and bloggers. I am starting to sound like that girl who started every sentence with ….in band camp … In dubai, Eid is a festival like no other. The entire city is lit up, from bridges, to malls, to lamp posts that line the street. A myraid of colors reflect onto the abras. It is a beautiful sight. I shudder to think of the electricity bills. The period before Eid is called Ramadan where devotees abstain from eating, drinking and all illicit activities (wink wink) from sunrise to sunset. At sunset however they feast. I must observe that despite the twelve hours of self sacrifice I always found that there was plenty of over eating once the fast was broken. In Dubai a huge cannon marks the end of fasting. Ramdan is not a fun time to visit Dubai since your not allowed to eat in public till sunset, and most of the stores and clubs are closed.

The most interesting practice of Eid is the practice of explicit acts of generosity by the upper class. Sheikhs take time to hear the pleas of the poorer Islamic population and grant them ‘favours.’ For instance, Ahemd, could theoretically go up to the Sheikh and ask him for money to clear his loan, and boom, it would be granted. The whole process is very hush.

Lower Sheiks do the same. My dad used to work for some very wealthy Sheiks and each Eid, we the lucky children would receive five hundred dirhams (About two hundred Canadian dollars) plus huge pots of Biryanni. (Do note that I myself only ever saw about five dirhams from the bounty, since I was told by the powers of be, the rest of the money was deposited into a savings account....)

Another tradition is sacrificing a goat for Eid. Muslim families would buy a goat at the start of Ramadan and fatten it up, before sacrificing it for Eid. As a kid it never occurred to me this may be an inhumane practice. We played with goats, even named them, yet it never occurred to us to be sad about their impending demise.

So those are two of my 'when I was in Dubai' stories....I am going to get to celebrate Diwali this year, and Ill try and post pics of the cute outfit i get to wear and the yummy food!

DAMN U GOOGLE BETA

Is anyone out there as fed up with Google beta as I am?

There is nothing wrong with the program per se, its just that I find myself signing in about five times before I can make a comment on anyone’s blog.
Why not just synchronize the whole process before implementing a change? (To all you smarty techies, this is rhetorical question, and I do not need your insights on the complicated reasons behind it. I prefer to wallow in my ignorance.)

I went home last night, switched on the light and was confronted by a harrowing scene.

Everywhere I looked I found order and perfection. Clothes hung up neatly on hangers, like colors together, books placed at ninety degree angles, shoes shiny, tomorrow’s clothes ironed and ready, sheets freshly laundered….. Everything was perfect.

I almost cried.

I lamented for the days when I was too busy to hang up things on weekdays. For the days when every day was ear marked for salsa, illicit love making and endless sleep-overs.

I love my laundered sheets, but I can’t secretly think that all this perfection is evidence of a sort of loneliness.

See I always think that a little weekday mess, a shirt strewn here, a perfume bottle with its cap off, is evidence of a busy, satisfying life.

FLAVAAAAA FLAVVVVV!!!

Out here in TO, I’ve been missing my flava flav episodes….I was reduced to reading recaps on Cali Ja’s site…..(Thanks bud!)

But last night……I hit the Flava Flav jackpot…….I found VH1 on satellite….and that lead to a four hour flava flav blitz, which culminated into the finale….talk about havin some flava flav LUCK.

S was over, so Fathead and I forced her into watching the show. Now S is a great girl, who abhors ‘ghetto-ness.’ The look on her face when she saw Flava Flav in all his glory, afro out, ashy skin and crowning gold smile, was priceless.

For the first hour she wondered out loud how we could watch such crap…..blah blah. Hour number two and she got quite….the flava was seeping into her, and like a bad car crash, she couldn’t help but being drawn in, wanting to see more.

Flava flav, chose Deelishis, as his ultimate grill. Good choice considering the crazeeeee alternative. I loved New York’s mother, whose reaction to Flava Flav, (Despite all her other melodrama) was the only normal motherly reaction on the show. (She hated him.) Also she had a wonderful scene, where she begged her daughter to leave the show, since she had only a few months to live. On being prodded further, she says in a deep, grave voice, ‘It’s a serious illness, but it’s so new, they don’t even have a name for it yet.’

Btw what the heck was on Deelishis’s back and chest? Those scars would turn me off in a heart beat.

Also you had to love how Flava Flav was grabbing everyone’s behind, even the ones he was kicking off the show.

Um in case your inclined wikpedia has an info page on show….whatttdaaaa????
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_of_Love


Is it evil to hope Deelishis will dump his behind and there will be a season 3??

A girl’s gotta have a dream.

I came down with a huge coughing, sneezing, burning eyes, dribbly nose kind of a flu last week.

This translated into:

• Catching up on all the movies currently running on satellite, I do mean all, I watch RV and the Lindsay Lohan one too…..
  I went through three whole boxes of tissues; I have a new appreciation for tissue with cream in it, which is well worth the extra $3




• Flipping through oodles of porn, convinced that I could write better scripts or at the very least suggest more interesting positions and/or grunts. (A possible career choice for the future should the whole 9 to 5 thing not work out)
  
  Movie Reviews:
  
  The Departed
  
  I really do love Martin Scorcese films. They satisfy my ‘would be’ gangsta….Italian mafiosis, inner self. The departed was overall a good movie. Yet the end, the grand finale, was sort of silly. It’s like good ole Martin got really tired after a year or so of filming, and said, scratch it, I fed up of fixing all the holes, fed up of thinking clever little ploys, fed up I tell you………..and then he wrote the ending. Anyone else seen it?
  
  Lucky Number Slevin
  
  This movie is all the things a good movie, is supposed to be. Smart, great wall paper in all the scenes, edgy, nifty story, and I loved Lucky Liu’s character. Especially the scene where she asks him out on a date, the subtle change, loved it, who knew Lucy Liu could act?
  
  Syrianna
  
  Complex movie that was in some ways a little simplistic in their potrayals of the benevolent leader. Yet I thought was excellent for it’s portrayal of domestic worker’s in oil rich nations. The movie aptly shows the plight of the poor Islamic Immigrant workers, who work in the most pitiful conditions, and who invariably becomes the easiest target for those idiotic martyr campaigns. It is sad that this is the only movie I have ever seen that mentions them.

For the Luv of god, please Shaaadap.

I have a co worker that loves to gab. I mean the lady just loves to go on and on, and on.

So every time I need to leave the office, I need to stealthily sweep past her office, without her noticing me….but every so often I hear:J: Hello CP, and How are you today.

CP: Oh dandy, just running of the ladies room…..(begin to walk slowly backward)

J: Well I must tell you about….blah blah blah

(10 minutes later……………..)

CP: Various non committal grunts

J: Blah Blah Blah

CP: (I could be dead and she would still be talking)

CP: (Mind wanders over to Wenthworth Miller and all the yummy things we could do together…)

J: Blah Blah Blah Blah.

CP: (I’ve lost an entire year talking to this woman)

Auditors

I think the most useless profession out there is that of an auditor. (I would say here, no offense if you are an auditor….but really I do mean offense, I do.)

I recently moved into a department that is audited to death as part of protocol.

I just couldn’t figure out the purpose of it, so I decided to ask the fellow….a short little man of Bangladeshi descent…..

CP: So you want the boss to sign everything, and you want copies of everything? What do you do with the copies?
A: Well we use as evidence that you are doing your jobs.

CP: Well if I wasn’t doing my job, my boss would notice and fire me.

A: Perhaps, but its proof to verify to the CEO that we as a third party are confirming that you do your job.

CP: Ok, fair enough…so you bother me for a week and then you go present all this stuff to the CEO.

A: Well no. Actually we prepare a report and then file it away.

CP: (Incredulous stare) So you mean to say, you irritate me for two weeks with the most pointless questions, you kill a dozen trees making pointless photocopies and you file it away?

A: Well yes, that’s our job………….

OEY VEY!

Mr. Wild

This is a little excerpt about a character I created a while back: (Here is the link to the short story: Gold Fish Are Gauranteed to Die)

Mr. Wild lies against me. His heart beat echoes through my body, his presence envelopes me. His tiny hands stretch to reach around me. I can feel them strain against my belly. He smells, of powder, baby-ness and hope. He is talking to me and as I close my eyes his enquiring questions wash over me and I think:

I want to run ahead of you
Smashing away any of life’s lessons
Ensuring your path is free and clear

As you cry into my shoulder
I think of the years ahead
The times when I will not be there
To protect you from life’s scares

How much I would give to keep you
From feeling an ounce of pain
Shedding a tear of sadness
Feeling a tremor of fear

I want your innocence to progress unspoiled
I want your happiness to be undiminished by knowledge

My parents are having a marital stand off…..over grocery shopping and satellite dishes.

Her case: Saturday afternoon and my mother (who has never seen the need to get a driver’s license) decides she needs my father to not only take her to the store, but to spend quality time with her, as she mulls over the price of Broccoli.

His case: Saturday afternoon and my father wants to screw around with the illegal satellite box he is mildly obsessed with. It should be noted that his continued screwing around with the satellite box has lead to nothing but less channels and more static. Pop thinks it is appropriate to drop wife off to grocery store, hike up and down the ladder at least twenty times whilst obsessively bugging fathead to see what the signal strength of the green bar is, and later return to pick up wife.

It ended up with them yelling at each other and speaking one word sentences for the entire week.

Result: A week long war, that has left the household starving…..(as a show of independence my mother has withdrawn all cooking services)…..whilst my father proclaims loudly every single day, that he has no problems eating out of a can for the rest of his life.

My mother calls today:

M: I have an ingenious plan

CP: (Sceptical noise)

M: It’s the long weekend. We’ve been invited to 3 parties.

CP: Pop’s does love his parties

M: He needs me. He can't go alone. He’ll give in.

M: (EVIL GENERAL MUSHARAF LAUGH) Psychological warfare CP…..you should try it sometime.

Scary.........

I posted the following reply on Mad Bull’s site, about a fella with a toe fetish:

“I let a fella take liberties with my toe once. He still calls occasionally, ten years later, and I have a fond admiration for my powerful feet. Remember trying to suppress the laughter as he stared with longing at my feet. Much too weird for me."

I haven’t heard from Toesy in at least two years now and the instant I hit post I get a text from Tosey saying ‘Hey Stranger.’

My first thoughts are: ‘Damn my toes are good’........followed by an instant shudder.

Who Am I?

What a lot of you may not know about me... is that I grew up in a sunny place called Dubai. Dubai is a city or province (depending on how you look at these things) or an emirate in the United Arab Emirates. The United Arab Emirates or UAE for short is a country the size of Bellville on the tip of the Middle East. However my lineage neither begins nor ends there. What few people know about Dubai is that it is made of immigrants. 80% of the population is immigrants. In Dubai there are also different levels of immigrants. There are the Arabs and British, who are white collar immigrants, the Asians, Indians, Pakistanis etc. who are the middle class immigrants, they crunch numbers, are secretaries, mid level managers etc. Then there are the lower class immigrants, the Pilipino, the Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis from villages, who are not well educated, who become the servants and construction workers, people who have built Dubai.




Here’s a little history on Dubai. It is part of seven emirates that make up the UAE. Of the seven Dubai and Abu Dhabi (the capital) have the most oil and natural gas reserves (10% of the world’s reserves.) Dubai will run out of its oil reserves by 2010. When my parents first arrived in Dubai in the 70’s from India, it was nothing but sand and few buildings. I lived in Dubai till 1995, and Dubai was still a quite little city. Fast Forward to today and Dubai has positioned itself as a Mecca for business tourists. It has developed at an extraordinary pace in the last 10 years. They have built the Bur Jul Arab, the world’s only seven star hotel in the form of a sail, in the middle of the sea. They have the palm islands, the islands of continents, an indoor snow resort, and various other schemes that could only have been developed with a nation that has too much money.



Now back to me. My parents were immigrants from India. Now India is a country that I liken to a collage. It is made up of plethora of religions, languages, traditions within traditions, the list goes on. My parents are Catholic Indians, a dying breed. From our names and my grandparents wavering memories we at some point had a randy grandmother or grandfather, who mingled with the British and then later the Portuguese.



By now your wondering, where is this girl going with this? Well the one emotion I have never felt in my entire life is nationalism. In Dubai we were painfully aware that we were mere guests of the country, despite having been born and brought up there. In India, or Indian culture I am a bit of anomaly. For one thing people are always asking what my name is short for. ‘Nothing’ makes them suspicious. (The majority of Indians in Canada are of Punjabi descent and tend to have names like Bopinder Singh, which they then cleverly shorten to Bob.) I have always admired nationalist sentiments. Dracs for instance could not have been a prouder Trini. I have friends who have immigrated to the States who are now Proud Americans.

After living in TO for the past ten years now, I would say that I feel somewhat Canadian, well except when I travel two hours outside Toronto, and people pointedly ask me what my heritage is, because their idea of a Canadian is still blue eyed and blond.

Times are changing. And of all the countries I’ve visited and lived in, I have to say Canada has something extra special about it. I now have a crazy family that cheers loudly for the Leaf’s, have added maple syrup to their breakfasting and occasionally say ‘eh’ with a gleam in their eyes. Even more Canadian is that we now eat Jerk Chicken twice a week, Vietnamese once a month, listen to Latin music and admire bodacious beauty of all races.

So I ask, who are you proud to be?

I am so tired today.

What do you say to the man, who you waited three years for, who made you think about getting married and have little babies with, who you could have had a pretty ok future with, when he calls you and says he regrets giving you up.

Thing is he did give me up. For someone with the ridiculous name Venus. And he asked her to marry him. So I wish the selfish man, would keep his regrets to himself. And lie in the bed he has chosen.

I have my own broken heart to contend with. And if he hadn’t chosen someone else, I would never have met Draconian. I would never have realized that you could have someone that makes your insides tingle and sets your mind on fire. That it doesn’t have to be one or the other.

So I guess I have a lot in common with the selfish man right now, because I have regrets too.

Hinder - Lips Of An Angel